Lithuania to Return Torah Scrolls to Jews

Legislators in Lithuania decided Tuesday to return to the Jewish community hundreds of Torah scrolls taken from Jews during the Holocaust.

“This decision is a gesture of goodwill by Lithuania seeking to develop good political and cultural cooperation with the Jewish community,” Zibartas Jackunas, chairman of the Lithuanian parliament’s cultural committee, told Reuters.

Debate has swirled for years around 370 Torah scrolls that were found in Lithuania after the Holocaust and placed in the country’s National Library. The scrolls, mostly in fragments, were among thousands of Torahs lost in eastern and central European countries during the Holocaust, and are among the few remaining links to the 220,000 Jews who lived in Lithuania before World War II.